France: Open data future for court rulings

Managing IP is part of Legal Benchmarking Limited, 4 Bouverie Street, London, EC4Y 8AX

Copyright © Legal Benchmarking Limited and its affiliated companies 2025

Accessibility | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Modern Slavery Statement

France: Open data future for court rulings

Sponsored by

beau-de-lomenie.png
kobu-agency-nrsiaptxru-unsplash.jpg

Beau de Loménie explain the timelines set out in France for the release of court rulings to the public, although further patience is required in concern of first instance decisions

In its decision of January 21 2021, the French Administrative Supreme Court (Conseil d’Etat) gave three months to the Minister of Justice to issue an order setting out the date from which court rulings would be made available to the public. This has now been carried out with a slight delay with the publication of the order of April 28 2021.

At the present time, only an extremely small percentage of the rulings handed down by French courts are made available to the public free of charge in electronic format. In the framework of the parliamentary debates in April 2016, speaking about a draft bill concerning a ‘digital republic’, Senator Évelyne Didier mentioned that less than 1% of first instance and appeal decisions are available on Légifrance, a French public service providing access to legal texts including laws and rules in force. She added that the other decisions are sold to various subscribers, among them private companies specialised in legal publications.

A few numbers enable one to have an idea of the volume of court rulings handed down in France according to the type of legal dispute, and to realise that the work that still has to be carried out to complete what was referred to as ‘a mammoth task’ by Jean-Jacques Urvoas, when he was Minister of Justice.

In 2019, no less than 2,250,217 court rulings were issued in civil and commercial cases, 812,249 in criminal cases and 267,809in administrative cases. Less than 15,000 court decisions, essentially ones handed down by the French Civil Supreme Court (Cour de Cassation), are made available online each year by Légifrance. The goal is now to distribute more than 3 million decisions per year.

The task of making court rulings available to the public in civil cases will be spread out over several years: 

6ec6cb0bf0484c0f8a4563b50914874b


Certain decisions handed down by the courts concerning legal disputes which are of general public interest, will however be made available to the public prior to the target dates indicated in this general plan. Although, at present, no order has been issued setting forth any specific calendar in this respect, nor has a list of the decisions concerned been released.

According to the timeframe provided by the government, starting from the fourth quarter of 2025, decisions of the Paris court will be made available online free of charge on a dedicated website, six months after the decision.

If it is indeed ‘tomorrow’ that all of the decisions of the Cour de cassation and the Conseil d’Etat will be made available, a certain degree of patience will be necessary concerning first instance decisions which are of particular importance in the study of intellectual property.

 

Cabinet Beau de LoménieE: contact@bdl-ip.com  

 

 

more from across site and SHARED ros bottom lb

More from across our site

A copyright win for AI firm Anthropic and a new executive order against law firm Jenner & Block were also among the top talking points this week
A principal at Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner explains how AI tools, including DeepIP, can position the firm to help clients
The firm explains why AI-empowered data analytics could make it a more efficient advocate for its clients
Penelope Aspinall, of IP wellbeing charity Jonathan’s Voice, explains why managers should take a three-tiered approach to looking after workers’ mental health
Heath Hoglund talks about the value proposition of patent pools and why it went ahead with its first-ever series of pool meetings in China
Ryan Richardson, Chris O’Brien, and Jean Selep of Sterne Kessler analyse the treatment of SEPs at the UPC and ITC and highlight why SEP holders and implementers should be mindful of current developments in both forums
A ruling concerning the UPC’s jurisdiction, questions over costs transparency, and a missed deadline by Amazon were among the top talking points this fortnight
Exclusive data and analysis reveal how firms can differentiate themselves when it comes to costs and value
The Berlin office will mark the firm’s fourth German base and tenth overall
As we build up to another busy year for the IP STARS rankings and Managing IP Awards, we give a rundown of some of the major IP firms and trends in the UK
Gift this article